Smiles, Sandcastles, and Shark-free Swimming in New Smyrna Beach, FL

In the spring - before we knew we'd be out of town for two weeks to Alaska - we bought tickets and reserved a beach house in New Smyrna Beach, FL for a family vacation.  And after being off half of July and working less than two weeks, we headed out on another vacation!

Cas fixed his first pigtail in the airport.  And Maya was much calmer on this flight than she was on the airplane last year.  

These silly fools riding the tram in the Orlando airport.  We were comical in the airport, as I was stubbornly against checking baggage, so we had three carry-ons, one car-seat go-go-baby that was the size of a carry-on - meaning we had zero free hands for our children.  They did okay until Maya went on the escalator and it was a little touch-and-go!

The beach house my mom reserved was a huge win!  It was steps from a public park with showers to rinse off the sand, and then a few more steps from the beach right by a lifeguard stand.  Plus we were blocks from the main strip with restaurants and shops.  

We arrived Saturday afternoon and hit the beach sans camera.  Which was a mistake because Maya's reaction this year to the ocean was tremendous.  She loved it, had a blast boogie boarding the first afternoon, her smile could not have been any bigger!  Collin fought waves with the big boys and then rode some on the boogie board too.  The beach afternoon wrapped up with a family wet sand war!  Saturday evening we headed out for our first of five restaurants in a row with the kids - which is a record for them!

Happy Daddy-daughter duo -  

 Matching maxi dresses with Mommy (with some ballerina twirls) -

Looking cool with Uncle Alex -

Oh Brownie, this trip was relaxing for everyone but him.  There were two flights of stairs (Cas had a bet on how many times we'd hear "hold onto the rail"), bar stools without backs ("be careful"), restaurants with piers to the water ("too close to the edge") and grandchildren sometimes overconfident in the ocean ("stay close to the family").  While he found plenty to worry about - allowing the rest of us to sit back and relax - I'm also pretty sure he had a great time riding waves and playing with family!

My sweet daughter - she is such a happy girl -

Sunday morning, while we waited for everyone to wake up and hit the beach, Collin found and caught a baby gecko in the house -

Likely one of his highlights of the vacation -

After watching Collin have sand fights with Uncle Alex, Maya wanted in on the action.

She liked throwing water and sand, but didn't appreciate being on the receiving end! 

She was mildly excited about the ocean!

When not in the water, she loved building sand castles and playing catch -

A catch - 

And a miss - 

Cas taught her a touchdown dance - 

She never wanted to leave, even when the rest of us were starving for lunch -

 

Though we missed capturing her first boogie board rides of the year, we brought the camera out on the third day.  And she refused to ride.  We had to bribe her with 5 minutes on the Kindle and a chocolate to get her on the boogie board.  And she'd only let Daddy help her catch a wave -  

She did it one time, and poor thing, it was worth the chocolate for the tumble she took.  The play-by-play:

Still smiling . . .

Uh-oh -

Daddy to the rescue -

Re-grouped and recovered for a photo!

The waves were wonderful, with lots of family boogie boarding and body surfing sessions.  Alex and my mom -

Collin enjoyed fighting the waves, had one afternoon where he and Maya jumped over the waves and he counted over 500 jumps.  But often he entertained himself on shore building castles -

I brought coordinated outfits for a family photo, but on our last evening when I had planned to take pictures, it rained.  By the time we made it out on Wednesday morning, the sun was quite bright and we missed the "golden" sunlight of daybreak and dusk.

Brownie in his hiking boots with his granddaughter in hand -

 Squinting smiles into the sun -

Uncle Alex - who Collin stuck to like glue throughout our five days together -

We loved our time together at the beach!

I was hoping to get another great photo like last year with the kids.  Poor guys could barely keep their eyes open and their smiles were sub-par.  I told them to smile like they were laughing and this was the best we captured -

We were about an hour outside of Orlando in a beautiful beach town of New Smyrna Beach.  Our criteria for our summer vacation locale was someplace relatively close to an airport with good waves and decent restaurants.  While we knew it was known as a great surfing beach, we didn't know until a few weeks before heading there that it was the shark bite capital of the world!  Thankfully, we were safe, and quickly realized that the surfers were out both deeper in the water but also on the northern end of the beach where they had the bigger waves but also an area with more fish and therefore more sharks. So this was the closest we came to sharks -

What a great five days we had in Florida!  We went on a kayak adventure (where we ended up in a thunderstorm), rode countless waves, built tons of sandcastles, saw matinees and dolphins, ate delicious food, cheered on the final five gymnasts at the Olympics, and soaked up the sun and sweet family time!

Mighty Men and other adventures at summer camp

I heard stories from work colleagues talking about spreadsheets and logistics of summer camps, and this was our first time experiencing the fun and frustrations of the school-age summer schedule.  We wanted Collin to have a magical summer, a relaxed summer, a fun summer.  We wanted him in activities with friends.  But we also didn't want to be fired from our jobs.  It was a delicate balance!

First up was KidVenture, the most convenient camp - different themes every week, a weekly field trip on a chartered, air conditioned bus, and best of all, full time care at the church where Maya goes to preschool!  Collin said it was "better than he expected" and he met plenty of kids there throughout his five off-and-on weeks over the summer.  His first week, he earned the camper of the week award!

Next up was the highly inconvenient, 8:30am-11:30am soccer camp.  It was a sweet camp FULL of kids from his elementary school, Biblically-based.  He won an award that we think was perseverance though he told us another word that made no sense.

One of our favorite weeks in the summer was T Bar M camp week.  While T Bar M has overnight camps in two different locations in Texas, they also have a week-long day camp that rotates around churches in the state.  Our church hosted and I had volunteered our family to host what I initially thought was one counselor, since we have one spare bedroom, thinking we could take the counselor to and from camp when we brought Collin.

We ended up with three college boys that our kids still talk about and pray for, and the whole family LOVED the experience.  It was a blast having the counselors stay with us, even if we did get called "ma'am" and "sir" all week, were told how 27-year-old Steph Curry was very old, and went through  a TON of food.  The kids loved hanging out with them at dinners (and early-bird Maya at breakfasts), Collin loved seeing them at camp, and most of all, we enjoyed seeing their strong faith and love of God that they were pouring into our children at camp.

As I was planning out the summer logistics, I sent a note to some kinder moms to see what they were doing to try to get Collin in activities with friends and in hopes of coordinating and carpooling to some of the camps.  So we ended up with four other kinder boys joining us for the camp, and thankfully, they all loved it, since I was the one that introduced the camp to our group.

Pirate day -

Our skinny, strong boy on the rock wall -

New friends were made in the small groups, bonding over water slides, games, or other activities.  Our roommate counselors asked Collin what his favorite part of the first day was at dinner and he responded, "catching a frog."  Not what they expected after setting up the inflatable water slides, putting on skits, teaching them Bible stories, etc!

The boys were assigned camps and then assigned to be an Alpha or Omega.  Every aspect had a chant - "s-n-a-c-k, snack time,  hooray hooray" and "OOOOOOOOO-mega, mighty, mighty, mighty Omega!"  Our favorite (including Maya's) was the Mighty Men of T Bar M song but the video was too long to upload.  Here are some of the mighty men on ninja/camo day - 

Oh T Bar M camp, I could go on and on!  We were thrilled that (with our counselors' encouragement), Collin bravely sang the superman prayer in front of the 140 kids and counselors.  We were thrilled that each child is given a certificate with an encouraging word for them - brave, leader, intelligent - and that Collin's descriptive word was "kind."  The counselors shared how they demonstrated this trait, and the parents video'ed the little speeches with tears in our eyes!  We were thrilled that God's victorious story was shared with kids from all over, and hope we can bring more friends to have an incredibly fun week while learning timeless truth next year!

While Maya learned the chants, songs and dances, she spent the summer in her pre-school with her sweet class and wonderful teachers.  The class put on a circus performance when Cas and I were in Alaska, and my mom went to cheer her on.

She told my mom she was going to be a mermaid singing "Let it Go" and my mom figured she was a little mixed up, but sure enough, our singing (clown) mermaid - 

Collin and his best friend were in a two week "art" camp that included science, games, drama and of course, art.  Collin loved the drama class, and brought home a robot, painting of our home, painted pottery and many other pieces!

Collin wrapped up the summer at KidVenture - with foam pits, beach field trips, and animal encounters.  We can't believe next week is our last week of summer, but we think our kids will say the three summer months have been a blast!